


We Didn't Start the Fire

by GoldenDemon



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: A grittier take on running an insurgency, Adora/Glimmer-centric, Behind Enemy Lines, F/F, Guerrilla Warfare, Oblivious Adora (She-Ra), Past Adora/Catra (She-Ra), Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 18:55:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17566103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenDemon/pseuds/GoldenDemon
Summary: When a potential new member of the Princess Alliance sends a call for help from the farthest reaches of Etheria, Adora, Bow, and Glimmer must venture behind enemy lines into a kingdom already conquered by the Horde. The discovery of a new weapon that could turn the tides of the war raises hard questions about the price of victory and the very nature of the conflict.Having an increasingly serious, and as far as you can tell one-sided, crush on your friend obviously doesn't help the situation.





	We Didn't Start the Fire

“Hey, Glimmer? Who’s that?” Adora asked, leaning down to whisper in Glimmer’s ear.

“That’s Princess Rida,” Glimmer whispered back, brows quirked and lips pursed in surprise. Adora’s heart flip-flopped in fondness as she watched Glimmer frown at the other girl. “What is she doing here? She’s always down in the stables usually.”

“Wait, she lives at Bright Moon?” Adora said. “I’ve never seen her before.”

“Yeah, that’s because she _never_ comes to council meetings,” Glimmer said, a sour note in her voice. She slouched back in her chair, arms crossed as she slid downwards. “You’d think someone whose kingdom was conquered by the Horde would be more interested in the Princess Alliance.”

“Well, maybe she’ll be more interested now!” Adora said encouragingly. She went to pat Glimmer on the shoulder, but the image of holding her friend’s hand, their fingers intertwined, glitched into her brain. Her wires all crossed, she ended up resting a hand softly on top of Glimmer’s.

The pink-haired princess’ frown cracked. She smiled up at Adora. “You’re worrying about my feelings again.”

"Am I?” Adora asked sheepishly, a fluttering warmth in her chest.

“I’m not that upset. I feel bad bothering you with it,” Glimmer said, taking Adora’s hand and giving it a squeeze.

“We’re friends!” Adora said. Her next words, _I’ve got your back, always_ , died on her tongue. She thought of mismatched eyes and a lashing tail. Glimmer must have seen her expression crumple, and leaned forward like she was about to say something, before Queen Angella took her seat.

“Council is now in session!” she said. “Let us begin.”

* * *

Time passed in a blur of supply reports and troop movements, as it always did in council meetings. Adora’s gaze was sharp, flicking to and fro as she scratched notes onto the paper before her. Glimmer did her best to keep up.

“Now, to our next item on the agenda,” Queen Angella said, sliding a stack of papers aside into the waiting arms of a clerk. “Princess Rida. We do not usually see you at the war table. You said this was a matter of some importance?”

Rida stood, and bowed to Angella. Adora took a closer look at her. Tall, with dark skin and almond eyes, Rida wore a richly-patterned coat and kept her black hair in a long braid draped over one shoulder. “I received a message last night, your majesty. It was from my home, in rebellion ciphers and marked for your eyes only.” She produced a small scroll canister from a pocket of her coat. Adora could see the colored bands along the exterior of the canister that indicated sender, destination, and security level.

Angella raised her narrow brows. “From the Howling Steppes? We have not heard from our fighters there in some time, yes? There was some thought that the rebellion in the Steppes may have been totally defeated.”

Rida’s eyes darted away from Angella’s at that. “Yes, your majesty,” she said, mouth twisted sourly. “It has been more than a year since the last communique from the Steppes.”

Angella twisted the message canister open and unrolled the tiny scrip within. “Well, let us see what our erstwhile comrades have to say, then.” She read in silence for a moment. An eyebrow raised. Nostrils flared. Angella set the message down on the war table. “Princess Rida,” she said, and the temperature in the room dropped several degrees in an instant. “Did you read this message before handing it over to me?” Adora and Glimmer both tensed at her tone; Glimmer from long experience with her mother, Adora from a lifetime of hyperawareness of the anger of her superiors.

Rida clearly sensed it too, her face paling slightly. “No, your majesty, I did not,” she said. “It was addressed to you alone.”

“Hm,” Angella said. She picked up the paper and began to read aloud.

> “ _A._
> 
> _“Congratulations on finally beating the Horde in a stand-up fight. Heard you’re getting the band back together; how about you put your money where your mouth is and send aid and troops to the people who’ve been doing the_ **_real_ ** _work while you hid behind the Whispering Woods?_
> 
> _“P.S. Send the She-Ra too. I want to see if she’s everything the Horde says she is._

“And it is signed with the mark of a crimson hawk,” Angella finished.

Glimmer silently mouthed _holy shit_ to Adora, visibly torn between offense on her mother’s behalf and glee that someone would speak to her so brazenly.

Rida was flushed with embarrassment, now. “I apologize for my sister, Queen Angella,” she said through gritted teeth. “Rayda has never been one for courtesy or good sense.”

“Quite,” Angella said, leaning back. “Please convey to Princess Rayda that while we are sympathetic to her position, our situation here is newly precarious as we no longer _have_ the Whispering Woods to…hide behind. Our current efforts are entirely directed towards the fortification of Bright Moon, and any diversion of troops or materiel must be shown to - ”

“Wait, hold on! Sorry, Queen Angella, wait, back up a sec,” Adora said. “I’m sorry for interrupting, just – Red Hawk Rayda is your _sister?_ ” This last was directed at Princess Rida.

“You’ve heard of her?” came a surprised chorus from Rida, Glimmer, and Angella at once.

“Yeah, I, uh…I mean, wow,” Adora said, scratching the back of her head nervously. “Is she not a big deal in the rebellion?”

“All of our princess allies are valued parts of the rebellion,” Angella said at the same time as Rida said “No.” There was a moment of awkward silence. Angella continued. “Why do you ask, Adora?”

“I mean, she’s like…number two on the Horde’s most-wanted list. Right below you, ma’am. Your majesty,” Adora said. “She gouged out Force Captain Nemea’s eyes with her _thumbs_! The Howling Steppes is a career-destroyer, a meat-grinder. It’s where Lord Hordak sends people he’s angry with. It’s got the worst ratio of any of the border provinces, and-”

“Worst what?” Rida asked, interrupting.

Adora paused. “Worst ratio? Sorry, am I talking too fast? I just, it’s nice to actually know something about something. For a change.”

“No, we understood you, Adora. I think what Rida was asking is, the ratio of what to what?” Angella said.

“Oh! The K/D ratio,” Adora said brightly. “Kills to deaths.”

A look went around the table, then, one of those looks that she saw whenever she talked uncarefully about the Horde. Queasiness. Anger. Pity. The pity hurt the most.

Adora hated those looks.

She cleared her throat in the ensuing silence. “And um, anyway, I think that if Princess Rayda is indicating interest in the Princess Alliance then we could really use her on our side. She’s a…her people are tough fighters. They made us pay for every mile.” She wiped her sweaty palms on her pants. “If you want. Ma’am.”

She sat back down very quickly and did not make eye contact with anyone.

“Hm,” Queen Angella said.

Adora saw Glimmer’s soft, warm hand find her own where it gripped the side of her chair. “It doesn’t have to be anything big, Mom,” Glimmer said, voice soft and reasonable. “Clearly there’s a lot we don’t know about what’s going on in the Steppes. Now that Frosta and Mermista have committed to the Alliance, we can go by sea and then through the Kingdom of Snows, rather than making our way around the entire edge of the Fright Zone by land. It wouldn’t be nearly as much of a trip. You can send me and Adora and Bow. It’ll just be a fact-finding mission. We’ll stay out of trouble, see what Rayda wants, and maybe get the lines of communication re-opened. There and back in a month, tops.”

“I’m not sure if it’s wise to send our strongest warrior away when Bright Moon is so vulnerable,” Angella said, hands folded and brow furrowed in thought.

“It’ll take the Horde a while to put together another strike force that large,” Glimmer said reassuringly. “And Perfuma and Mermista are only a day away! With you, Spinnerella, and Netossa here, that’s almost the full Alliance.”

Angella nodded. “Princess Rida,” she said. “What are your thoughts on Commander Glimmer’s proposal?”

“It’s a waste of time,” Rida said – or snapped, a bit. “With apologies, your majesty, Commander, there’s no point. If you offer her anything less than everything she demands, she won’t even let you past the tent flap.”

“In that case, I would ask that you accompany She-Ra on her mission to the Howling Steppes and intercede on our behalf with Princess Rayda,” Angella said. “Our situation here, I do not need to tell you, is desperate. If what Adora says is true, then Rayda’s help keeping the Horde off-balance and its armies away from Bright Moon would be of immeasurable value.”

Rida opened her mouth as if to protest, but thought better of it. Adora watched a muscle tense along her jaw. “Yes, your majesty,” she said, with another bow.

“Then it is decided,” Angella said. She gave Glimmer a fond smile. “Commander Glimmer, your proposal for an inspection tour of the Howling Steppes is hereby approved. Do be careful, will you?”

* * *

“So, where are the Howling Steppes anyway?” Bow asked as he set a neatly-folded crop top into his suitcase.

“They’re to the north of the Fright Zone,” Adora said, frowning at her heavily annotated strategy board as Glimmer stuffed clothes haphazardly into bags behind her. “Between it and the Kingdom of Snows. The failure of his troops to pacify the Steppes was the primary reason Hordak never moved on Snows.” She tapped a map to illustrate her point. “They’re enormous. In terms of area the Steppes are as big as Bright Moon, but the Horde’s best guess at total population puts it at somewhere around a tenth of your numbers. In creche we learned that they wandered around in disorganized, inefficient bands, wasting the potential of the land and idling away their time on internal squabbles-”

“We weren’t _wasting_ anything,” came a voice from behind them. The trio whirled in alarm, Adora grabbing the Sword of Protection where it sat on Glimmer’s bed. Princess Rida, a scowl on her face, strode towards them. “And we weren’t disorganized,” she continued.

Standing this close, Adora realized that Rida was actually an inch or two taller than her. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled as she looked up at the other princess. “I- I know,” she said sheepishly. “The Horde said a lot of stuff about the rebels that wasn’t true. That’s just- that’s what they told us.”

Rida glared at her for a moment longer, her eyes pools of liquid darkness, then turned to the strategy board. “You misspelled this,” she said, licking her thumb to wipe out a charcoal place-name and correcting a pair of characters. She turned to where Glimmer was packing, and tugged a heavy coat out of the shorter girl’s hands. “There’s no point in bringing that. Nothing you have will be heavy enough for the Steppes in winter. It will be cheaper and easier to buy what we need when we reach the Kingdom of Snows.”

Glimmer snatched the coat back from Rida, folding it in her arms like a security blanket. “Do you knock before you barge into people’s rooms, ever?” she asked tartly.

Rida looked at Glimmer, unblinking and expressionless, for a long moment. “No,” she said at last. “It comes of growing up in a tent, you see. No doors to knock on.”

Glimmer deflated a little bit. “Oh. I hadn’t thought of- sorry, that was insensitive-”

"Also, I don’t respect you.”

“Oooooh-kay!” Bow said, leaping into action to wrap a comforting (and restraining) arm around Glimmer’s shoulders as she opened her mouth and raised a fist. He scooted the shorter princess away from the taller. “So what brings you to our little travel preparation session today, Rida?”

_"Bow, let me at her! ” Glimmer hissed in his ear, murderously._

_"Play it cool, Glimmer_ ,” he said in a gritted-teeth singsong.

“This journey is going to be an entirely pointless waste of everyone’s time,” Rida announced. “Whatever the Horde may have _told you_ , She-Ra,” she said with an unimpressed up-and-down look at Adora, “My sister’s hiding in caves and playing warlord is not going to win us back our home.”

“Oh, wow, never heard _this_ one before,” Glimmer said under her breath.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Rida asked, turning on Glimmer.

“That's the only thing you _ever_ say about my plans, Rida. 'It's pointless, it's not going to help, the Horde is too strong to fight.’” Glimmer drew herself up into an exaggerated imitation of Rida's regal bearing, doing her impression of the other girl in a stiff and snooty tone. “You never want to do anything to help. You never even pretend to care!”

“Oh, no, here we go again,” Bow said faintly, covering his face with his hands.

“As though you've ever concerned yourself with anyone else's feelings,” Rida said coldly. “ _You_ do this every time; you decide how everything will be and pass it down like your word is law, and the minute anyone criticizes your _plans_ , you throw a tantrum until you get your way.” She made sarcastic air-quotes around the word 'plans’.

“Hey!” Adora said sharply, stepping in between the two princesses, her face inches from Rida's. “You're out of line.” She felt a white-hot indignation in her stomach. Glimmer was a good friend, and a good leader, and honestly Rida was right about how she didn't always ask for her friends’ input before she bulldozed ahead with a plan but Adora found that she didn't care very much about that at all because how _dare_ this stuck-up, condescending _Princess_ talk like that to _her friend_ and-

“Yeah, Rida, that's not cool,” Bow said. “Glimmer cares a lot about people's feelings. I know you two have never gotten along but I think you should both take a step back and apologize to each other.”

Rida didn't seem like she'd heard Bow, at first, her eyes wide and locked with Adora's. Fury simmered underneath Adora's skin, her hands clenched in fists at her sides.

“And we are taking a step _back_ , Adora,” said Bow, gently sliding an arm between them to scoot Adora a few inches back. She realized that the tension she'd been feeling in her face was her mouth, pulled back in a snarl, and that Rida's wide eyes were - fearful? Adora's anger was instantly quenched in cold guilt. She didn't want to scare anyone. Or, well, she had, but she didn't mean like - she wasn't - she -

“Yeah,” she said hastily. “Yeah. Sorry.” She stepped to the side, not hiding behind Bow precisely but definitely not in front of him.

Glimmer looked at Adora, briefly, and Adora felt a hot flower of self-loathing bloom in her stomach at the wariness or pity or _whatever_ in Glimmer’s lavender eyes. Glimmer didn’t say anything to her, though, and instead stepped forward to look up at Rida. “Rida, look,” she said gently. “Whether either of us likes it or not, you’re on our team for this mission. I’m sorry for escalating things; I’m in charge, so I should have done better as your leader. I promise that I will listen to your concerns and to any constructive feedback you have about our plans.” Glimmer’s slight emphasis on the word ‘constructive’ was the only indication that she was still deeply irritated with Rida. “Just, please, work with us, okay?”

Rida didn’t say anything, but she broke eye contact first, looking away from Glimmer. Her jaw was clamped firmly shut, but her nose flared in a tiny breath of frustration.

“Listen, you were right, we don’t know anything about the Howling Steppes,” Glimmer said. “We’re going to need your help. I think we could all use a little space right now, but what do you think about us coming by your camp later and you can run us through everything we’ll need to know about the Steppes to not make this mission a total disaster?”

There was a flicker of interest in Rida’s eyes at that, and her scowl faltered for a moment before she put it back in place. After a moment, she spoke. “Very well. Find me at the first evening watch. I’ll have something ready for you by then.”

“Great!” Glimmer said with a cheerful clap of her hands. “We’ll see you then. Now…” The smile vanished from her face and her voice. “Get out of my room.”

With a mutter of something that might have been _“Don’t have to tell me twice,”_ Rida did so. Once the door closed behind her, Glimmer teleported onto her bed with a groan.

“I hate being responsible soooooo muuuuuch,” she croaked. “I don’t know how my mom does this all day, it’s exhausting.”

“I thought you handled that pretty well!” Bow said, hopping up the floating staircase to sit next to her. “Good recovery. Real leadership.”

“She’s such a _biiiiiiiiiitch_ ,” Glimmer moaned, kicking her legs for emphasis.

“She is sometimes difficult to get along with,” Bow said, hand on his chin as he nodded in acknowledgement.

Glimmer was quiet for a moment. “Maybe I’m not being fair,” she said. “I don’t know how I would feel if Bright Moon had fallen and I had to go back...you know, go back without being able to also go _home_.” She sighed heavily. “It’s gotta be weird for her.”

Weird sounded about right, to Adora. Her arms crossed tightly across her body, she stared at nothing and thought about another mission, and another place. Home. The Fright Zone. Corridors, loading bays, towers and gantries and elevator shafts she knew like the backs of her own hands. The posters and murals on the walls - _For a Unified Etheria; Order, Force, Zeal; Suffer Not the Princess to Live; If You See Something, Say Something_. Hard bunks, dry air, the din of the ventilation turbines.

Mismatched eyes glowing in the dark.

Green fire.

It was true, how the saying went. You never could go home again.

“Adora?” Glimmer said, appearing beside her in a burst of sparkles. Adora yelped, startled from her thoughts. “Do you want to come sit with us?” She looked up at Adora with those big eyes full of concern, and Adora turned away, holding herself tighter.

“I’m okay down here,” she said. _Stupid weak reckless you frightened her and made it awkward and now you’re forcing her to pick up your slack and worrying her for no reason, why can’t you just_ **_get it together Adora_ **.

Glimmer looked at her for a moment, thinking, and then took a half-step closer. She bumped Adora’s hip with her own and wrapped an arm around her waist for a gentle half-hug. “You sure got up in Rida’s face, there,” she said, in a tone of voice that indicated it was a question.

“Sorry,” Adora said, tongue thick with guilt. “I shouldn’t have gotten angry. It just escalated things, and I didn’t- I didn’t think about how Rida was feeling.”

Glimmer hummed in acknowledgement. “She didn’t exactly make it easy,” she said.

“I just...didn’t like the way she talked to you,” Adora said, still not able to meet Glimmer’s eyes, feeling overheated and defensive and silly.

Glimmer snorted with laughter. “Yeah, me neither.” When Adora didn’t smile, she pulled the taller girl closer against her and poked her in the abs with her free hand. It was a bit like poking a stone wall. “Hey. It might not have been helpful, exactly, but I appreciated it.”

Adora managed an unsteady smile, grateful beyond words that Glimmer wasn’t upset with her after all. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. You’re a good friend. I know I can count on you.” She dropped her hand from Adora’s waist to twine their fingers together and give Adora’s hand a comforting squeeze. “Now come on, I want some dessert in me before we have to talk to her again.”

“We just had lunch!” Bow called from above them.

“Yeah, and?” Glimmer said. “Exactly,” she continued, without actually giving Bow time to retort. “Now come on, I bet the kitchen has something with double chocolate.” She teleported to the door, tugging her fingers from Adora’s.

Adora’s arm half-rose in an instinctive gesture as Glimmer vanished, her fingers plaintively outstretched for the warm touch they had enjoyed just a moment ago. _I want…_ came the beginnings of a thought. But she didn’t know what she wanted. So she dropped her arm, fingers still tingling with some nameless sensation, and hurried after her friend.

**Author's Note:**

> It's that time again kids. New fandom hyperfixation, new conceptually ambitious longfic. Thank you for reading! You can find me on tumblr at baal-pit, Twitter as @Jagganoth, and on Discord as Jagganoth#6685.
> 
> Next chapter: Adora, attempting to flirt, accidentally insults Glimmer quite badly! Mermista decides to attack her problems head-on! Night-time conversations on balconies about feelings with the wine-dark waves crashing below! Oh, the drama of it all.


End file.
